Goin' Home!

Dr. Carr stopped by on Saturday morning to assess Trent.  He said everything looks good and there is no reason to keep him here.  So we are leaving this morning, Sunday.  All the docs keep saying how surprised they are that Trent has "sailed" through this surgery as well as he has.  He is still sore but everything is progressing nicely.  He will go home with oxygen although he is not getting too much.  He is only on one liter at rest and two with exercise.  He has tried to sit without it a few times and does quite well.  As he gets stronger he won't need it any more.  Respiratory came in the other day to test his right lung.  His score was 131.  Normal for a person his size with two lungs is 132.  Rock on, right?!

Dr. Carr also brought news of the pathology.  I was not too surprised with the results given what they encountered during surgery.  The lymph nodes that were removed were all negative, (remember that is a good thing), the large tumor had grown back to about 9 cm and was only 10-15% necrotic (dead).  The margins were negative everywhere except the two spots where the tumor was growing onto the heart and onto the chest wall.  That is not exactly what we wanted to hear, but again, not surprising.  Dr. Carr said that at the chest wall site there was absolutely nothing more he could have taken so there is a chance that he got all the cancer, although the margin was positive.  The heart surgeon who stepped in on the surgery to remove the tumor on his heart was hopeful that all the cancer had been removed from his heart as well.  We are not going to worry too much about the positive margins because in Dr. Carr's words, "It is what it is."  We are going to start radiation in the first part of July and with the expertise of Dr. Hahn from PA, we will hopefully get any cancer cells that are left.  Until then, we are going to pray like crazy and spend every moment we can enjoying our family.   

Yesterday we got a visit from Stephanie, another one of our favorite nurses.  Okay, who are we kidding...we love nurses!  There have been so many who have been so great!  We love to talk to each one and find out about their lives and what makes them tick.  It is really fun and we both feel like we have made some great friends because of that.  

Stephanie and Trent-all smiles!

 Yesterday afternoon Trent finally got in the shower.  He could have done it earlier but it just took too much out of him to do it.  I gave him bed baths but that is just not the same.  He sat in the shower for about fifteen minutes just letting the water run over him.  We got him all spruced up and smelling pretty and he felt so much better.

All cleaned up and no place to go!

 It has been nice to not really have any issues pop up during our stay here.  Each night we picked a movie and relaxed.  Last night we were watching The Vow, not a great movie so don't waste your time.  Nice idea, really lame script.  I think Trent was losing interest and I looked over to see this...

Nice monacle, Trent!

You can hardly see it in the picture but he has one of the medicine cups on his eye like a monacle.  It is nice to have him joking around again. :)